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Guide to Choosing A Carpet Cleaner

December 4, 2012

5 Step Guide to Choosing A Carpet Cleaner.

The consumer can have a tough time deciding on a carpet cleaner. A combination of good value and great service is what Mighty Clean offer, and whether you choose Mighty Clean Carpet, or a competitor,
we gladly provide the following advice for choosing a carpet cleaner.

If you are primarily driven by price, you can scour the newspapers, carpet cleaning webpages etc, and you will always find a cheap cleaner. The fact of the matter is this. Anybody who is handing out pricing without knowing your situation is most likely a “Dodgey Dan” – the name us reputable carpet cleaners give to the cowboys. There are no shortage of Dogdey Dans’s cleaning carpets for under $15 per room. The way these operators work is to either cut big corners giving you an inferior service OR they rely on high pressure upselling techniques including carpet protection sales, anti-static treatments etc. These operators will often use bait and switch techniques, telling you your carpet is not suited to the cleaning process they advertised, and will require a more expensive treatment. Mighty Clean Carpet do not offer cheap, valueless work, and we operate to the Australian Standards AS/NZS 3733 as a minimum. We will also try and give you the most accurate price estimate possible over the phone. We offer free quotes in the local area for work that is difficult to evaluate over the phone.

When you are looking for a carpet cleaner, consider the folllowing;

1. Before any price is mentioned, you should be asked what your requirements are. These may include asthma/allergy concerns, visible soiling, stains, odours or general maintenance. You should be asked how long it has been since your carpets were last cleaned. A description of the number of rooms or floor area should also be part of the discussion. Any problem areas requiring extra attention should be discussed prior to pricing. If you are only asked about the number of rooms before a price is given – BEWARE. If price is soley what a carpet cleaner is trying to entice your business with, then you have to ask why. The reason is simple. This is the ONLY way they will get your business. It certainly won’t be on service.

2. You should ask about furniture. Mighty Clean move lounge suites (within reason), dining room tables and dining chairs. These are all placed on furniture sliders, re-instated after cleaning with protective blocks or plastic tabs to prevent furniture contacting moist carpet. Many carpet cleaners will not move any furniture, but worse yet, many will move furniture without ANY protective measures. I get at least a call a week asking if I can remove furniture stains caused by reckless carpet cleaning operators who have not used furniture protection. Failure to protect furniture results in rust marks, tannin stains and furniture finish stains. These are not always correctable. If a cleaner makes no mention of furniture protection measures – RUN!

3. Ask what the process involves. If there is no mention of dry vacuuming prior to wet cleaning, then your operator is not following the Australian Standards, and will be leaving mud in the base of your carpet. All the cheapy carpet cleaners are neglecting this important step, as a cost and corner cutting measure. It is NOT enough to expect the steam cleaning unit to extract the dry soil in your carpet. This is NOT what it designed to do. The Australian Standards demands that a carpet be vacuumed prior to dry or wet cleaning to remove sand, dirt and other non-soluble organic matter.

4. Ask whether stains will be treated. Mighty Clean Carpet will treat all spots, which are areas of concentrated grime, but our price does NOT include paint removal, furniture stain treatment, dye or urine stain treatment. We can treat these issues better than any carpet cleaner in the local area, but these are priced on an as-is basis. Some cleaners will claim to treat stains free of charge. In reality, what they will do is give them a quick squirt with some cleaning product, and when they predictably still remain, will tell you the stain is permanent. Our photos show what is capable with stain treatment, but this requires extra time and expertise, and therefore we charge extra for specialised stain removal. Don’t be hoodwinked by a “stains included” operator who turns around and tells you the stains are permanent.

5. Finally, ask about qualifications. Your carpet is a valuable asset within your home, and when you consider the cost of carpet cleaning, which is usually done annually, saving a small amount of money to have an unqualified operator work on carpets is unwise. Some of my work involves rectifying issues created by homeowners using DIY rug doctor and Britex machines, or rectifying brown-out, wicking or stains created by Dodgey Dan operators. I have seen many a woolen carpet chemically burned by inappropriate cleaning chemistry also.

Of course you can avoid all of this issues by giving Mighty Clean Carpet a call.